On The Scouting Trail: 
Clarke Farrer 10-29-2020

A Bittersweet Farewell

About a year ago the GTC started negotiations with the Presiding Bishopric’s Office of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the transfer of Treasure Mountain Camp of the Tetons from the GTC to the LDS Church. We have now reached an agreement on the terms of the transfer and signed an agreement.

It’s important to know that the GTC does not own TMSC. For over eighty years we have operated it on a Special Use Permit from the US Forest Service. The camp was selected and developed in the mid to late 1930s and the first summer of formal camping was held in 1939.

Due to problems with the water system and other conflicts, the USFS ranger closed the camp at the end of the 2018 camping season and it has remained closed since that time.

On September 25^th and 26^th we went up to TMSC with about 150 Scouts and Scouters.  About half the group were 2020 Cedar Badge staffers. The rest were TMSC staffers and others who had attended and loved the camp and came to say goodbye.

We held a combined campfire program and Cedar Badge staff recognition ceremony on Friday night at Chiefs’ Rock. We started by adding campfire ashes that have passed on through Scout camps starting in England in 1907 down through TMSC for the past six years. I shared some of the history of the camp and thanked and recognized the past Scout executives and camp directors. The campfire concluded with 92-year-old Camp Ranger Dale Marcum reciting the Legend of the Tetons from Chiefs’ Rock wearing the original chief’s headdress that was worn by Verl Andrews when the camp was new. We concluded the evening by singing Taps.

The next morning the Moulton Family cooked a pancake breakfast for everyone, and then we divided up into twelve groups to pack up and clean up the camp. We had crews working on the lodge commissary, warehouse, trading post, handicraft shed, waterfront shed, the range sheds, collecting the lodge poles, dismantling tent platforms, repairing the damage from vandalism, and cleaning up the camp. By midday Saturday we had run out of trucks and trailers to put things in, so the work came to a halt and everyone left camp to unload equipment and supplies and drop the trailers at Scout Hollow. Another work detail went in two weeks later to load the rest of the equipment and supplies and do a final cleanup of the camp and buildings.

The nice thing about this change is that the TMSC will continue to serve future generations of youth--just not Scouts.

The Council has designed a commemorative “Ghost Patch” for TMSC (see below). A Ghost Patch is the final patch for a camp or council that has closed or been merged. The patches will be available for purchase at the Council service centers soon.

Many thanks to all who have served thousands of Scouts at Treasure Mountain Camp of the Tetons over the past eighty years. Many lives have been changes and thousands of fond memories have been made.

I’ll see you on the Scouting Trail,

Clarke